With almost three years having passed since the Italian Prime Ministerial Decree of January 24, 2013, which set out “Strategic guidelines for national cyberspace protection and ICT security”, this national roundtable event afforded an opportunity to take stock of what has been accomplished so far to implement that directive.
Kick-starting proceedings at this national roundtable event was recognition that debate on the state of the labor market in Italy and reflection on how the country measures up with conditions and models in other countries (Germany and the Netherlands in particular) are now more than ever imperative, at a time when the jobless rate is higher than the EU average (and is, indeed, the highest for youth unemployment), and when manufacturing output and consumer prices are in decline.
The opening premise of debate at this national roundtable was that Italy’s banking foundations are complex entities, operating as both investors and key players in the financial sector, but also as leading actors in the non-profit sector, an important component of any participatory democracy (like that in Italy) called upon not only to produce economic goods but values as well.
Proceedings at this national roundtable got underway with participants observing that Italy periodically looks to privatization as a means to restoring the fragile fortunes of its public finances. Yet while the increasingly straitened condition of these finances is what gives rise, from time to time, to the need to engage in such sell-offs, privatization cannot and should not merely entail a quick grab for cash. Indeed, the roundtable saw a number of different aspects of privatization discussed.
Conservation vs. change, protection vs. openness, and domestic focus vs. global reach: these juxtapositions prompted participants at this national roundtable to highlight that a cursory examination of the public debate over the prospects of the Italian audiovisual industry would seem to reflect – if not reduce it to – a simplistic dichotomy between old and new market players.
The participants at this national roundtable noted, by way of opening premise, that the luxury and high-end markets represent a worldwide business worth 730 billion dollars. The sub-segment of personal luxury goods – valued at 230 billion dollars – sees Italy and France as joint market leaders, each having a share worth more than 50 billion dollars.
Kick-starting this national roundtable event was the observation that the question of the competitiveness of Italian firms in global markets can be summed up in the indisputable if somewhat simplified proposition that while exports alone are not enough to get by on, they are nevertheless vital for survival. It was noted that the longstanding issue of the internationalization of Italian SMEs has been a subject of public debate for decades, in parallel with the escalation of globalization and the technological revolution.
320 times greater than the store of knowledge kept in the legendary Library of Alexandria, and representing a mass of data which, if stored on DVDs stacked on top of each other, would cover five times the distance from the Earth to the Moon and back again: it was in these terms that participants at this national roundtable described the wealth of knowledge that forms the preserve of contemporary man, and which, evocative analogies aside, comprises the extraordinary body of information commonly known as big data.
Discussions at this National Roundtable session opened with the observation that, due to its natural characteristics and anthropological factors, Italy may be considered as being exposed to a high level of disaster risk. As a preliminary step towards putting the phenomenon in context, the participants felt it useful to cite a number of statistics. Since 1900, earthquakes have caused around 160,000 deaths in Italy, while since the Second World War alone, there have been 1,061 lethal landslides, and at least 672 fatal floods.
Discussions at this National Roundtable commenced with a reference to the old cartographic practice of marking unknown and dangerous lands with the expression “Hic sunt leones”. It was suggested that, today, the same could be done if charting a hypothetical map of business taxation in Italy: an insidious terra incognita in which that peculiar invention of the judiciary known as “abuse of rights” generates confusion and uncertainty.
The participants at this National Roundtable viewed as telling that in the nigh-on seventy-year history of the Italian Republic, there have been several instances of eminent figures such as Guido Carli expressing grave concerns regarding the state of the country’s public administration. Today, after a protracted period characterized by a lack of continuity in the political and governmental helmsmanship of the state apparatus, the prevailing sense is that of an institutional and procedural milieu bereft of political leadership.
The participants at this national roundtable noted that, since its very beginnings, the story of the media has been interwoven with power (and the ability to call it to account). This was the case of the first gazettes to emerge in the seventeenth century in various European cities, though it was felt that other crucial milestones on this journey are also worth remembering, such as Voltaire’s “Treatise on Tolerance“, which, through an indictment not at all far removed from that of modern media campaigns, achieved important results for eighteenth-century French society.
Setting the backdrop for discussions at this National Roundtable session were the latest global liquidity indicators produced by the Bank for International Settlements, according to which credit at a global level is in abundant supply, risk appetite is strengthening, and credit conditions are loosening. This, again pursuant to the Bank for International Settlements, is favoring the growth of debt issuance and loans over bank-intermediated cross-border funding. The private equity sector has also been picking up since 2013.
This national roundtable discussion got underway with the observation that at the heart of Italy’s spending review is the idea of reducing expenditure for the purpose of rebalancing public finances or achieving other priority objectives such as alleviating the tax burden – a concept which, in reality, is not entirely new in Italy. Indeed, soon after the unification of the Kingdom of Italy, the Historical Right (to which Sella belonged) was engaged in a process of rationalizing expenditure with a view to balancing the budget.
The debate at this national roundtable got underway with the observation that tapping into knowledge that has always existed in Italy to revive Italian arts and crafts industries is a key priority for the country given that, in the current difficult climate, they could serve as important drivers of economic development and growth. It was noted that there is a peculiar symbiosis in Italy between the manufacturing industry and arts and crafts.
Discussions at this national roundtable session got underway with the opening premise that the economic crisis and its social consequences have profoundly called into question the prevailing economic paradigm – a model based on competitive individualism, maximizing the profit of the individual, and an “invisible hand” regulating the market. The result is that the idea of the common interest merely being the sum of individual interests no longer seems sustainable in the current economic and social climate.
Discussions at this roundtable got underway with the observation that five years of crisis – triggered by the collapse of the financial sector and constantly compounded by (public and private) financial difficulties – have forced a rethink of the role of industry, which is now called on once again to become an engine of growth. Indeed, the need for a different economic vision, one which combines the kind of tangible and intangible values needed to kick-start new sustainable growth – has seen the production system return to center stage.
Driving discussions at this national roundtable was an awareness that any attempt at positing a restructure of the Italian design industry must contend with the simultaneously complex yet interesting nature of the way it currently operates.
At this national roundtable discussion, it was observed that the global phenomenon known as e-commerce is bringing about a paradigm shift in distribution models for products and services. In a scenario of constantly increasing online sales, growth in this sector seems unlikely to slow down, thanks also to the spread of new technologies – such as smartphones and tablets – that are making the consumer experience even more effortless. Globally, the number of cell phones far exceeds not only that of televisions, but also mundane everyday items such as toothbrushes.
Participants at this roundtable session were of a consensus that Italy still has an effective industrial system, and may continue to do so as long as a major restructure is undertaken so as to provide a boost for a great swathe of firms that are currently wavering between the boon of opportunities offered by global growth and the risk of being marginalized.
